Apparently the Board of Directors had a meeting. It called their number one point guy on the carpet. It said, “We have heard you have been hobnobbing with the uncircumcised Gentiles. What is the meaning of this behavior?”
So Peter replied, “Ah, ah, well-l l, it was like this. I was praying and the Holy Spirit sent me to speak to this Roman centurion. So I went and talked with him and his whole family. Suddenly I heard him and the rest speaking in tongues. So I baptized his family and him.
A new era opened for the Church that day. It started in Jerusalem on Pentecost. It accepted Greek-speaking Jews as well as native (Hebrew-speaking) Jews. With Peter and the Centurion, the doors sprang open for the mission to the Gentiles in the rest of the world.
What else is new? In my lifetime I have seen overtures made to our baptized and Christian separated brethren, whom we used to call Protestants. We have made many movements towards the Orthodox with whom we share the seven sacraments and hierarchy.
We have the Church working with marginalized peoples, such as those with gender issues, those with immigration problems, those with language difficulties, those with criminal backgrounds, those with marriage problems. In each of these the Church has ventured out, as did Peter, into new waters to bring the gospel to all places, situations and circumstances in the world. The Church has even ventured into ecology and pandemics to bring the word of God to the world and to the universe.
Nothing and nobody is unclean, for the love of God in Christ reaches out to the whole of creation. The Board of Directors can only say, “God then has granted life-giving repentance to the Gentiles too.” Go out, then, and carry forth the message as God’s Spirit gives you the command.